Sun International delivered a solid performance for the six months ended 30 June 2025, navigating macroeconomic headwinds and structural shifts in the gaming sector, but has said it will improve its slot floor optimisation and machine mix to drive growth.
The results underscore the strength of the group’s diversified portfolio and its increasing focus on an omnichannel approach. The group’s market-leading assets include land-based casinos, online gaming, resorts and hotels and limited payout machines (LPM). The group’s continuing income increased by 3.2 per cent to R6.2bn compared to the six months ended 30 June 2024. Excluding the impact of the Table Bay Hotel lease cessation, group continuing income increased by 6.7 per cent.
Norman Basthdaw, CFO & Executive Director at Sun, said: “We saw good top-line growth in resorts and hotels, and that was really driven and underpinned by our performance at Sun City. We had softness in our gaming business and Sun City was no different. We saw around a two per cent decline in our casino income at Sun City, which was a combination of our slots business down around 11 per cent, but slightly buoyed by the fact that we saw an increase in our margin by 1.2 per cent.
“Our tables business is where we became a bit unstuck in Sun City. Our activity was down on our tables business and that was compounded by the fact that our margin was also down in our tables business at Sun City. So — but we did see our rooms revenue improve. Our rooms revenue was up by 17.3 per cent at Sun City and our food and beverage 12 per cent up. Overall, at Sun City, we saw income increasing by 7.6 per cent and that contributed positively to our resorts and hotels.
The softness in the Wild Coast performance diluted that positive impact by Sun City and then we’ve also had a good outcome and performance from the Maslow, largely driven by the corporate travel into the Sandton.”
Ulrik Bengtsson, CEO & Executive Director, said: “GrandWest, our flagship and largest casino situated in the Western Cape, has had ongoing roadworks around the precinct contributing to reduced footfall to the property. The decline in casino income at our casinos was however primarily driven by a combination of a lower conversion of footfall into the casinos, some operational inefficiencies in our tables business and uncaptured opportunities in floor optimisation and machine mix. We have responded by implementing a new operating model in the business and by putting in place new initiatives to position the urban casino portfolio as integrated entertainment destinations.”
The Sunbet group maintained its upward trend, with income increasing by 70.7 per cent, driven by increased volume of activity and deposits. The urban casinos had a muted performance with income declining by 1.4 per cent. Some operational challenges in combination with a casino market that is under pressure will require us to re-assess our approach to this portfolio of businesses. Excluding the TBH, resorts and hotels revenue was up 4.3 per cent to R1.3bn on the prior period, driven by the recovery of conferencing and events.
Mr Basthdaw added: “We’re very happy with the Sunbet growth, growing at 70 per cent, a very impressive number. The underlying KPIs from that growth is driven by increased customer activity, so active customers, but also an increase in deposits.”
The Sun Slots strategy bore positive outcomes with income improving by 2.2 per cent to R701m compared to the prior period.
Mr Bengtsson added: “There is an opportunity to invest more in our slot business and work with our machine mix to be more efficient. The floor layout has some optimisation work that we can work with. On the table business, there’s a lot of operating procedures that I think we can improve on to make that business more efficient. It makes complete sense for us to look at other African markets for expansion when the time is right and when the platform and the product is ready and the team is ready for that. Outside of Africa, I think that’s out of scope for the time being. Let’s focus on closer to home where we have a legitimate reason to sort of play and be successful.”
The group has consistently demonstrated its capability to generate significant cash flow through its diverse portfolio and is in a strong financial position with debt at R5bn, down from R5.2bn at 31 December 2024.
The post Sun International to improve slot floor optimisation and machine mix after solid six months appeared first on G3 Newswire.
Sun International delivered a solid performance for the six months ended 30 June 2025, navigating macroeconomic headwinds and structural shifts in the gaming sector, but has said it will improve its slot floor optimisation and machine mix to drive growth. The results underscore the strength of the group’s diversified portfolio and its increasing focus on…
The post Sun International to improve slot floor optimisation and machine mix after solid six months appeared first on G3 Newswire.